Third Floor View ready to rock Bangor

Sean Leddy was on his way to work when I called him on his cell phone to chat about his band. The 19-year-old lives in Brunswick and works at a music store by day. By night, he is the singer and guitarist for the rock band Third Floor View, which plays tonight at the Underground in Bangor.

All four band members grew up in the Portland area, and started playing as Third Floor View a few years ago.

“We started the band when we [Leddy and bassist Keegan Fotter] were juniors and Sam Woodworth, our drummer, was a freshman at Brunswick High,” said Leddy. “We were always kind of a high school band; we played at our school and at battles of the bands and stuff.”

With the addition of second guitarist Tim Nickerson, what was once a few teenagers in a metal band has lasted them through high school and gotten increasingly musically complex.

“As soon as Tim joined the band we started playing a lot more intricate stuff,” said Leddy. “He also really got us into gigging. We started playing out in Portland, and then all over Maine.”

The band has embraced a far more complex sound, reminiscent of Coheed and Cambria, Cursive, Story of the Year, and Leddy’s personal favorite, Thrice – guitar and vocal harmonies, soaring choruses and dense, crunchy riffs. While it’s probably not quite time for Leddy or anyone else in Third Floor View to quit their day jobs, with a spot opening for nationally popular band Finch and some serious air time on Portland area radio, it’s safe to say it’s more than just a hobby.

Third Floor View’s unofficial single, “The Chase,” off their debut EP “The Innocent Routine,” starts off with some tense, twitchy drum chatter from Woodworth, who at age 17 is already an extraordinarily powerful drummer. The rest of the band falls in, and while Leddy’s earnest vocal pyrotechnics almost make me want to bring out the dreaded “e” word, he denies any desire to join the bespectacled millions and go all Dashboard Confessional on us.

“We are not emo,” Leddy cautioned. “There are plenty of bands that do that, but that doesn’t really stick with us. We like bands that have a lot of power behind them. It’s definitely all about rock ‘n’ roll.”

Third Floor View will play at the Underground along with another Portland band, Lost on Liftoff. Already garnering major airplay on WCYY 94.3 FM, the latter has been together for barely a year. It helps that all four band members were once members of well-known Portland bands.

Guitarist Nick Lambert and bassist Dan “Shifty” Walsh, both formerly of Chaos Twin, and drummer Shane Kinney, of the now-defunct Broken Clown, had been jamming for a little while. When word spread that longtime Maine rockers 6gig had thrown in the towel, the three invited singer Walt Craven to sit in and see if they could make a band out of it.

A band they became, and Lost on Liftoff went to work crafting some catchy, pop-solid songs that ended up on their self-titled debut EP, which hits the streets this Tuesday. With fist-pumping choruses and stuck-in-your-head melodies, it’s no surprise the band has received so much success based on radio airplay.

Third Floor View and Lost on Liftoff will play with Bangor rockers Soundbender and Still Standing at the Underground, located on Outer Hammond Street, right by the Bangor-Hermon town line. The show, sponsored by local promo group Bullitproof Productions, starts at 8 p.m., is chem-free and all ages, and costs $10. For more information, visit www.thirdfloorview.com, www.lostonliftoff.com and www.myspace.com/clubug. Emily Burnham can be reached at eburnham@bangordailynews.net.